Implications for leaders
To what extent do you use or defy nature? Do you spend a healthy amount of time grooming people who you do, or should, work closely with? Or do you ignore the importance of bonding and claim to be too busy? Here’s a checklist:
> At least 20% of your conversations should be social chitchat (in fact, we could be more demanding and suggest 20% of your day be devoted to grooming – that’s the proportion of a chimp’s day spent grooming).
> Schedule informal team events (coffee meetings, lunches, end-of-month dinners) where in such a setting at least 66% of the conversation will be social chitchat (courtesy of Robin Dunbar of Oxford). Organisations should reimburse these expenses to encourage the practice.
> Leaders should have regular one-on-one catch-ups with direct reports which will include chitchat.
> Check in with people before and after weekends and be aware of significant events in the person’s life.
> Know the important things that make the other person who they are (their identity).
> If you have people reporting to you who are based in a different location or building, replicate the chitchat that would happen if you worked together by calling them regularly just to say hello (in our ancestral setting we were in constant physical, face-to-face contact with each other).
Grooming investment
In the conversation I had with Dr Goodall she’s reflecting on the 50 years of observational research in the forests of Gombe, Tanzania. She’s comparing constructive leader, Figan, to the tyrant, Frodo. Figan groomed frequently. He was literally in touch and connected to his followers. On the other hand, Frodo was so self-occupied he rarely groomed others…yet expected others to groom him! Constructive leaders such as Figan tend to last as leaders for about10 years. The tyrants and the non-groomers tend to only last as leaders for about two years.
